Both of my starters are really thick, like a really thick pancake batter. I can understand better now since you have explained it to me how you determine the hydration of the starter. I appreciate you explaining how to discard the starter after you put two cups in a clean container. I wasn’t sure how to go about that, either. I didn’t understand that a thicker starter is called a sponge and a thinner starter is called a poolish. I just had experience with my poolish I used for my Lehmann dough and that is really thick. I wonder why the sponge and poolish names are then interchangeable.

It isn't absolutely necessary that you use the preferment dough calculating tool. If you can find and use an existing dough recipe that calls for a natural starter/preferment and can get the recipe to work, then that might be good enough for your purposes. The advantage of the preferment dough calculating tool is that it allows you to devise your own dough formulations where you can alter just about any of the baker's percents of the ingredients permitted by the tool. You can also use the tool to convert a dough formulation using commercial yeast to one using a natural starter/preferment. Moreover, because of the way the tool was designed, if you enter the proper numbers for the starter/preferment into the tool, the risk of ending up with an incorrect hydration should be quite low.

With respect to the way the water percent is calculated for the starter/preferment, if you look at the preferment "box" at the middle of the preferment dough calculating tool (http://www.pizzamaking.com/preferment_calculator.html), you will see a "Note" that tells you how to calculate the number that applies to the water. So, using Matt's numbers of 40 grams of water and 60 grams of flour as an example, the number to enter into the tool is 40/(40 + 60) = 40/100 = 40. It is so simple, a caveman can do it.

There are also other limitations to the preferment dough calculating tool. One is the limited number of ingredients that can be used with the tool. It provides for the basic ingredients of flour, water and salt, commercial yeast (but only if used to supplement the natural starter/preferment, such as the Jeff Varasano dough formulation, for example), and sugar and oil. The latter two ingredients were included for those members who wish to make Neapolitan style pizzas in standard, unmodified home ovens and find it useful to add some sugar and/or oil to the dough formulation (e.g., a Caputo dough) to improve the performance of the dough in such an oven. I should also mention that the tool does not provide for milk, vinegar or baking soda--some of your recent favorite ingredients. It also does not provide for using exotic ingredients like yak vomit (scalded or unscalded), which I have heard through the grapevine you are considering as a way of getting more flavor in your Lehmann crusts at market.

I probably will use existing dough recipes to begin with, but as I learn how my starters work, I will use the preferment dough calculating tool. Since I am always into experimenting this should become a useful tool for me. I am sure the way you explained how to use it, will be helpful for others, too. I have used that tool for changing other formulas, but didn’t know it could change a formulation using commercial yeast into one using a natural starter. I can now see how easy it is to use now, since you have explained it to me. After you now gave me the link for Lehmann’s NY dough with a culture, I now can see the difference between a liquid and a sponge culture and it also might be called a poolish or wet sponge. I see in your post at Reply 21 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,11434.msg104502.html#msg104502 you just personally use the descriptor “natural” or “naturally leavened”, when speaking of starters or preferments that are based on natural, or wild yeast.

I appreciate you have provided all these links for me and others and have explained all what goes into using starters.

LOL, I don’t know where you heard thought the grapevine that I am planning on trying Yak’s vomit, (either scalded or non scalded) but I wish you would clue me in on your source. I might have to take care of that. I do have something up my sleeve though for trying out the scalded and unscalded sour dough mixes tomorrow, since no one has given me ideas. I know this is off-topic, but is that sour dough mix also called a natural yeast starter or what could it be called, because there is no yeast added?

I know this is off-topic, but is that sour dough mix also called a natural yeast starter or what could it be called, because there is no yeast added?

Norma,

The sour dough mixes you have been experimenting with--with milk, sugar and flour (plus wild yeast)--is quite unusual and does not conveniently fit the standard definitions of preferments, even though there are biochemical actions that are common to both natural and commercially leavened preferments but perhaps with more lactic acid production because of the way that the lactose in milk is transformed to lactic acid. I think I would simply call the sour dough mixes "natural sour dough mixes", mostly to differentiate them from standard preferments that include commercial yeast. Unfortunately, there is no way to shoehorn the sour dough mixes into the preferment dough calculating tool. That tool was designed mainly for Neapolitan style doughs while also being capable of being used for other types/styles of pizzas. I have used natural starters/preferments for just about every style of pizza (Sicilian excepted).

Knowing that you have been trying to increase the flavors of your Lehmann crusts, I think that you will experience a new dimension to the flavor and texture aspects of your crusts with the new cultures. If you can get the cultures to the point where you elicit the best flavors from them, which can take a fair amount of work, I think that you will find it difficult to ratchet up those flavors to a higher plateau. There are only so many ways to increase the intensity of flavors, a few of which you have already tried, like preferments, and are now trying with the natural sour dough mixes. You would perhaps have to go a different route, which is likely to produce fewer "natural" features and characteristics than what you get from your new cultures.

Thank you for answering my off-topic question. I had noticed when room and proofing box fermenting of the milk, sugar and flour that they acted just like the starters I was trying to activate in this thread. I might dry some of the “natural sour dough mix” and then see if I can activate the sour dough mix at some point. Maybe I would try and see if they have any leavening power without using commercial yeast. That also would be an interesting experiment. I watched how the milk, sugar and flour did first have a liquid on the top surface and then developed bubbles, just like these Italian starters. Gives me more to think about.

You have tried so many kinds of pizzas with natural starters/preferments. You posted that you didn’t try any starters/preferments in the Sicilian type. I never notice that you didn’t try any starters/preferments in that type of pizza. That is one place I did try natural starters that Toby helped me with. That also gave me some knowledge about “wild yeast starters” and how they behave.

I think you are right about me and trying to increase the flavors of my crusts and maybe after I learn enough about these starters I just activated, I might be able to experience a new dimension in the flavor of my crusts. My preferment for the Lehmann dough does increase the flavors of the crust some and I really like how that dough handles. Maybe in time these new starters will help me increase the flavors of my pizzas at market more. This will take me a long time to study, but it will be interesting. I still have so much to learn about these starters.

Oh, to be a caveman once again.........................say, didn't we (us cavemen, that is) invent mead at some point? The immaculate fermentation as it were?.........................

Steve,

I would like to go back in time, but not to be a cavewoman. They got their hair yanked. You are going to get some of these starters to play around with. Hope you can also get some good results from these starters. We might soon be experimenting with these starters at market, if we can get the basics down. Have you been reading this thread and taking this all in?

LOL, when I read your post at Reply 2 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4614.msg38978.html#msg38978 I cracked up laughing. I had played the Oregon Trail many times on a computer game that my granddaughter had. That game was fun. I raised that granddaughter from the time she was small and the Oregon Trail was one of our favorite games. So many things happened that you had to take care of. I can imagine the sourdough jug swinging back and forth on the wagon on the way to Oregon. Chester wasn’t even sure he got the measurements right from your post.

Thanks for the humor you injected into this thread. It always is good to have something to laugh about.

Since I have been anxious about trying out my newly activated starters, I decided to make a preferment dough today to try out. I really should have started the dough yesterday, but didn’t find time. I also don’t have Caputo or Pizzeria flour right now, but will get some soon. I just used granoro “00" flour, which I had on hand. I removed the Ischia starter from my refrigerator this morning and fed it the granoro “00" flour. I still have other Ischia starter, so if this doesn’t work out, I can still experiment with another flour, when feeding the starter. Pictured are the ingredients I used minus the sea salt, which I forgot to place in the picture. My starter was active and more alive as can be seen by where I placed the rubber band in 2 ½ hrs. I used the preferment calculating tool to come up with a formula for this dough. I am not going to post the formula now, but will post it after I try my first pie with a preferment. Pictured in the other picture is the dough I mixed. I am letting it bulk ferment in my proofing box. Then I will ball it and let it proof some more.

I am not sure where I am going to bake this pie, but wanted to try my BBQ set-up with a different configuration to try and get higher temperatures, but it has been raining off and on in our area, so I don’t know when I am ready to bake this pie today, if I can use the BBQ grill or if I will try out my home oven with the soapstone.

This is how my dough looks after it was bulk fermented in the proofing box and how it looks when formed into a dough ball. The dough is softer than any dough I made before. Now the dough ball is going into the proofing box again.

The bake is finished with my first try at a pie made with an Ischia Sour Dough Starter. I used the dough formulation below and used the preferment calculating tool to figure out this formula. I am not used to using this high of a hydration for dough in making a pizza. The dough was sticky, but with a little bench flour and a little dusting it opened okay. The dressings used for this pie were fresh mozzarella that Steve (Ev) made for me awhile ago, (it was frozen) Les’ fresh tomato sauce and when the pie was finished baking, it was dressed with fresh basil.

I really enjoyed this pie. I decided to bake in my BBQ grill set-up (with a little different set-up), even though it was lightly sprinkling, because I thought that was probably where I could get the highest temperatures for this type of pie.

The taste of the crust was the best I have tasted to this date. It was so moist inside and the slight crunch was good. I should have left this dough proof slower or put it into the fridge to cold ferment for longer, but I wanted to try out the starter.

Norma, it seems you haven't found any sour flavors in the crust. Have you?

s00da,

No, I didn’t have any sourdough flavor when using this starter. Maybe the starter hasn’t been feed enough or I didn’t let this dough slow ferment enough without using the ADY. These are all things I will have to try out in the future to see what I can achieve. I would like to just try the starters mixed with other ingredients for a long room ferment and see what happens. There are just too many ideas to try out at one time, when using starters. I would like to be able to make pizzas the “old world way”, when pizzas first started and see how the pies would then taste. I like to mix by hand and also would like to be able to see what can happen with using these starters. I have a lot to learn about starters.

Do you like a sourdough flavor in your crusts? Do you still use starters in your dough? I want to thank you for helping me with getting these starters activated. I appreciate your help.

I still do make my Neapolitan pies using the Ischia and it does give them a more complex flavor but I cannot say that they are sour. Some of the ppl who had my pies say that they have a hint of sourness but I couldn't detect myself.

Trying to produce more sour in my dough had me work on baguettes at the same time so I can better detect flavors. You can see this http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9319.0.html as I found that of course the more I fermented the dough, the more sour it got but I guess it was over-fermenting.

I switched to a cheaper local flour as the experiments were getting kind of expensive and I kept having failures with the following recipe:

65% hydration fermented for 24 hours at 75 F:

395g flour255g water10g ischia at 100% hydration8g salt

it always gave a lightly colored baguettes with little oven spring but it had some sourness. They were very leathery.

My baguettes now are as you see in the images and they are consistent any day I make them. Crisp, soft crumb, lots of sugars released from the starch and they smell amazing. Of course, no sourness The major difference between the two recipes is probably the lesser fermentation. The current recipe expands to double while the older one expanded to much more.

I think that in the current recipe, I am most likely treating the dough as a cold fermented dough with ADY/IDY as more sugars are becoming available but the wild yeast is barely utilizing them to make a double expansion in 22 hours. Now the question remains...how can I make my baguettes taste sour without over-fermenting them and end up with my previously unwanted results?

I had some email exchanges with Ed from sourdo.com and this was his reply:

Some want it sour, some like it mild, but everyone praises the exquisite flavor, aroma and open crumb of San Francisco sourdough. There are ways to achieve it all that never use any form of commercial yeast, dough flavors or “improvers”. We call it authentic sourdough! So will you!!

This is a fermentation process. The longer it lasts the better the flavor and sourness. The key players, the only players: wild yeasts and lactobacilli. Wild yeast leaven best at lower temperatures 65o to 75o. Lactobacilli produce the best flavor and sourness at 85o to 90oF. If dough proofing is at the lower temperatures, leavening will be excellent, but flavor and sourness mild. If proofing is at higher temperatures, the bacteria will be more active, the flavor more sour, but the yeasts will be inhibited by the acidity and the leavening not quite as good. Getting the right flavor sourness and leavening can be a balancing act to proof at the right temperature and at the right time.

Doing it right requires 3 proofs. Don’t panic. It takes far less than one hour of the baker’s time. The organisms do all the rest. First, the “fully active” culture is proofed 6 to 12 hours. Next, the dough is proofed 8 to 12 hours. Third the loaves are formed and proofed 3 to 4 hours until ready to bake. An easy schedule is to start the culture proof in the morning, proof it during the day; start the dough proof in the evening, and proof it overnight; then finish by doing the loaf proof as convenient the next morning.

Consistency is changed by regulating the amount of flour or water in the dough until an open crumb is achieved. Increasing the amount of water in a recipe by 4 percent increments will improve the crumb with each added increment. At the higher moistures machine kneading is desirable as the dough can be sticky and difficult to handle.

THE PROOFS:

The culture: Producing a massive innoculum of the sourdough organisms is the sole purpose of this proof. When the “fully active” culture is proofed at room temperature between 65o and 70o for 6 to 12 hours the flavor and leavening will be excellent, the sourness mild. If proofed at 85o to 90o the flavor and sourness will be excellent , the leavening not as good. Proofing at 65-70o for the first 2-3 hours produces an excellent crop of wild yeast cells. Follow this by proofing at 80o-85o for the next 6-10 hours which produces an equally good crop of lactobacilli resulting in good flavor, leavening and sourness. But feeding and warming it an hour is simply not enough. Ignore this at your peril!

The dough: The culture and additional ingredients are mix/kneaded for a maximum of 25 minutes in a bread machine or other mixer or kneaded by hand. The dough is then proofed for 8 to 12 hours in the machine pan covered with a light plastic or in a bowl covered by a lid. After that proof, a plastic spatula is used to ease the dough to a floured board where it rests for 20-30 minutes. It is then gently formed into a ball retaining the contained air bubbles as much as possible.

The loaves: The ball is placed in a willow basket dusted heavily with rye flour or in any other suitable baking container. It is proofed for 3 to 4 hours until ready for baking. The basket is turned over to transfer the loaf to a greased baking sheet dusted with white corn meal.

Baking: The baking sheet with its loaf is placed in a cool oven, which is set for 375o, turned on and baked for 70 minutes. Or the loaf can be transferred to a preheated stone and oven at 450o for 40 minutes. (Steam can be supplied by placing boiling water in a pan below the loaf as desired.)

It is not necessary nor desirable to do all three proofs at the same temperature and the length of each should be varied to achieve the desired results.

Here is a good basic recipe to test all of the above: (in your kitchen).

I have baked this recipe over a dozen times with different temperatures and proofing times for each of the 3 proofs. My favorite is proofing the culture at 80o, the overnight dough and the loaf at 68o. This combination produces a phenomenal oven spring (we call it “ballooning”), excellent flavor and sourness with a nice open crumb. Now it’s your turn!! For a more sour sourdough do the Loaf Proof at 90o. If that isn’t sufficiently sour, it’s your turn to experiment.

I believe that there is no escaping the fact that in order to get a more sour flavor, one needs to make the dough in stages as per Ed's recommendation.

So my next expirements will be around the following thoughts:

activate the startercreate part of the dough in poolish form as the flavoring agentcomplete the final dough and ferment in colder temperature to release the sugars and delay their consumptiondivide, form and bake

Thanks guys, I used the baguette pan only once and it's not bad but it doesn't shock the baguettes with that oomph you get from direct contact with a baking stone. Now I use the pan only to slide the baguettes onto the stone. It makes the process easy for a small electric oven. I use it in combination with parchment paper. Of course I need steam to get this oven spring in a temp. of 500 F. To create the steam, I use an aluminum pan at the bottom of the oven with a combination of spritzing the sides of the oven walls.

Any of you guys are Ischia users? can you let us what you think of your baked goods flavor in terms of complexity and sourness? and how you are achieving that.

I appreciate you shared so much. Your pictures of your baguettes look simply delicious! All your experiments have paid off. Best of luck in your next experiments with using part of the dough in a poolish form. That would be too complicate for me to figure out. Let us know how your experiments are going along those lines.

Thank you for giving your formula for baguettes. I have this baguette pan, that I had bought awhile ago, in my shed. Picture below. Maybe I also can learn to make baguettes since you have given me all this help. I really love baguettes, but had no idea about going about making them.I can understand how the key player is lots of sugars released from the starch. It interesting that your current recipe only expands to double, while your older one expanded much more.

Did you ever use a Ph meter to test the acidity of your fermenting dough? I have a decent Ph meter and have been wondering for awhile how I could use the meter to be able to find out when the dough is at its best.

Thank you for welcoming me into the mystery of the sour dough world. With your help, I have learned much. Now to practice what you have shared. I am anxious to have that amazing smell and complex taste.